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Crunching the car into reverse, she moved a few feet back. ‘It’s not like Tiffany and Megan are close, are they?’ She pulled forwards, using all her effort to turn the wheel, before slamming on her brakes and narrowly missing colliding with the wall. She felt like Austin Powers in the filmInternational Man of Mystery, when he was trying to negotiate a three-point turn in his golf cart.
‘That’s hardly my fault,’ her dad said, sounding aggrieved. ‘It’s not like I haven’t tried to get you girls together.’
Beth had absolutely no interest in ‘getting together’ with Tiffany. She might not be as angry as her mum about the situation, but the idea that Beth and Megan would welcome Tiffany into their lives and become friends was laughable. Besides, her mother would kill her.
Beth finally managed to escape the parking bay and whizzed onto the High Street in search of another space. Godalming wasn’t known for its multitude of car parks – the town was old and with narrow lanes, built way before people owned cars. As it was a busy shopping area, parking spaces were like gold dust.
She pulled into Mint Street car park and scanned the rows of vehicles squashed into the narrow bays. She spotted a solitary space on the adjacent row and made a beeline for it.
‘My point is that whatever your feelings are for Tiffany, surely your loyalty to Megan supersedes them. She’s your daughter, after all.’ She swung the car to the right, yanked hard on the steering wheel and pulled a hard left, skidding into the narrow space like a highly trained getaway driver. ‘And if there’s a choice between having her mum at her wedding or her dad’s new girlfriend, which one do you think she’d favour?’
‘It shouldn’t be a choice. They should both be there.’
Her father could be very naive at times.
Beth switched off the engine and opened the door, trying not to hit the neighbouring vehicle. ‘I know that’s what you want, Dad, but it can’t happen.’ She squeezed herself between the two cars, disconnecting the phone from hands-free as she juggled locking the door with balancing the handset to her ear. ‘I have to go, Dad, I’m late for a meeting. We’ll talk later when I’m back in the office. Can you at least think about what I’ve said? This is Megan’s big day and we need to do what’s best for her. Okay?’ Ignoring her father’s grumblings, she hooked her bag over her shoulder and hurried away, struggling to gain any speed in her tight suit and court shoes.
‘Excuse me!’ a man shouted behind her. ‘That was my space.’
He couldn’t be talking to her – it was a public car park, with no designated spaces.
She glanced over her shoulder to see an irate man running after her. He was very large and didn’t look happy. Oh, hell. This wasn’t good.
She tried to speed up, unwilling to engage in a debate with a man-mountain about parking spaces.
‘Don’t ignore me,’ he said, catching up. ‘I said, that was my space.’
Realising she couldn’t outrun him, she stopped and faced him. ‘What are you talking about? I haven’t taken anyone’s space.’
‘Yes, you have.’ He pointed to his abandoned SUV, its engine idling. ‘I was about to reverse into that space when you nicked it.’
She recoiled. ‘I didn’t nick it.’
‘Yes, you did. I was sitting there, indicator on, patiently waiting for the previous car to leave so I could have the space, when you came racing around the bend and swooped right in.’
‘I wasn’t racing.’ Her hand went to her neck. ‘I never race.’
‘You left tyre marks.’ He pointed to the tarmac.
Her eyes were drawn to a set of black skid marks. ‘They could’ve been done by anyone.’ But even she could see that the marks followed her trajectory, swerving straight into the space she was parked in. The lawyer in her couldn’t argue with the evidence.
‘You nearly hit my car,’ he said, moving towards her.
His close proximity made her take a step back. ‘I most certainly did not.’
He was a big guy. Intimidating.
‘You don’t believe me?’ He looked incredulous. ‘I have a dashboard camera fitted to my car. You’re welcome to watch the footage.’
Oh, crap. ‘That won’t be necessary,’ she said, tugging on the hem of her suit jacket, trying to regain the moral high ground. ‘Even if I do dispute your claims.’
‘Whatever. You’re still in my parking space.’
‘It’s not your parking space. It belongs to the council.’
His eyebrows lifted. ‘Seriously? That’s how you want to play this?’ He gave her a cursory once-over, his expression indicating he wasn’t impressed by what he saw. Bloody cheek. ‘You’re one of those people, are you?’
She didn’t like the way he was studying her. ‘What do you mean by that?’
